Where Are the Texas Instruments Based Windows Tablets At?

With Windows RT we’ve seen Qualcomm and NVIDIA processors so far, but where is Texas Instruments? As early as 2011, TI committed to the idea of working with Windows RT in the future, as well as continued support of Android and Linux.

In June of 2012 we even saw prototype equipment running on the OMAP4470. So what’s the hang up?

Rumors continue to pop up suggesting that Texas Instruments might be preparing to dump its mobile chip business altogether, and at the Windows 8 launch event Steve Ballmer only mentioned NVIDIA and Qualcomm as ARM-based partners.

The writing on the wall seems to suggest that either Microsoft decided to leave TI out or TI decided to back off until it decided what its mobile chip future had in store.

We’ve now heard word directly from a TI representative after Neowin asked the company if they would eventually have their processors inside of Windows RT tablets.

While the wording choice is careful, it seems to point strongly to the idea that we won’t be seeing TI Windows RT tablets, at least not any time soon.

Here are the exact words from the spokesperson’s email:

As part of long-standing company policy and out of respect for customer privacy, we don’t comment on specific customer end equipment. Additionally, as communicated in a recent investor event, the mobile market has become a less attractive long-term opportunity for TI’s OMAP products, primarily due to vertical integration and market consolidation. However, we remain committed to the OMAP family, and are accelerating the expansion of OMAP processors into a broader set of embedded applications such as automotive, industrial automation, thin clients and robotics, to grow the footprint beyond mobile. We are reprofiling our investment accordingly, but have no details to share at this time.

Here’s a question for you, does anyone care? While TI doesn’t build bad processors, I personally prefer the ARM processors built by Qualcomm and NVIDIA anyhow. What about you?